


Interlude One: Frustration

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-02
Updated: 2007-01-01
Packaged: 2019-01-19 15:28:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12412923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: Interlude One of Silences Between Leaves. Marigold Evans, Becky Denby, and Peter Pettigrew share their thoughts and frustration. Spans from 1947 to the end of Chapter Three: Red, in Silences Between Leaves.





	1. Marigold Evans: September 2, 1947 to August 15, 1977

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

****CHAPTER THREE OF SILENCES BETWEEN LEAVES IS UP****

This can stand alone, but these interludes will make much more sense if read along with _Silences Between Leaves._ Read them AFTER every third chapter in that story, otherwise you’ll find spoilers, and it won’t be my fault…

There are five interludes in _Silences Between Leaves_. Each focuses on three characters, two of which are original characters or very, very unexplored canon characters. The third character of each interlude will be either Peter Pettirgrew, Remus Lupin, Severus Snape, Sirius Black, or Petunia Evans. 

This is an interlude that will cover time UP UNTIL the end of Chapter Three in _Silences Between Leaves._ Each interlude has a theme. 

**Interlude One: Frustration**

****

**_……_ **

****

**Marigold Evans**

**{ _Full of Grace,_ by Sarah McLachlan}**

**September 2, 1947 to August 15, 1977**

****

It was raining heavily the day Marigold Cooper was born. She came into the world with a lust cry and several strong kicks, and she refused to quiet once she was in her mother’s arms. She grew up that way, never quiet, always yelling, always too much for her demure mother to handle. Her father died two years after she was born after being hit by and automobile, and Marigold was never allowed to cross the street without an adult present from them on. She did not do so until she was seventeen and in the company of her first, forbidden boyfriend.

Marigold always portrayed the angel in nativity plays. Her golden curls shone like a halo about her dainty, white, heart-shaped face. She looked like the perfect, blue-eyed child, but of course, she hardly was.

“Why doesn’t Jesus come to see us, Mummy?” she asked one day, and her mother fixed her with a stern eye.

“No one man is great enough to see Jesus, Marigold. You may see his angels, but anyone who tells you they have seen Jesus is trying to corrupt your faith.”

Marigold did not know what corrupt meant. She asked her mother.

Her mother sighed and put aside her rosary. “If someone asks you to reject the teachings of God as you have learned them, if someone tries to introduce to you a new aspect—a new part of your faith that you have never before seen, they are trying to ask you to commit a sin. Do you know what happens to those who sin?”

Marigold nodded her seven-year-old head. “They’ve got to do Hail Marys and Our Fathers.”

Her mother shook her head impatiently. “Yes, Marigold, but that’s not all. Those who sin have done something bad, and they must atone—make up—for it. You just pray, my love, and nothing bad will ever happen to you.”

This was a terrible lie. 

Her mother remarried when Marigold was ten. Marigold barely remembers the wedding; all she remembers of the marriage was meeting her new sister, a stately fourteen-year-old with a plain face and fierce, devout nature. Marigold’s faith was nothing compared to Amelia’s. The day they moved into her stepfather’s house, Marigold knew her mother would never feel the same way about her, not after seeing how good and pure Amelia was.

From that day forth her life became a contest with Amelia, although the older girl never acknowledged this or admitted it. Marigold spent days trying to gain the approval of her mother and new stepfather, but nothing seemed to work. When Marigold turned fifteen, she finally decided to rebel. 

She told her mother she was going to begin to date boys; her mother dragged her to church and had the priest pray over Marigold, pray for her to be a good Catholic girl and listen to her parents.

She asked her mother whether God had made homosexuals the way they were; her mother lectured her for and hour about God’s work and man’s corrupted soul.

She told her stepfather she was considering the idea that she might be a lesbian; she thought that would at least get her an exorcism, but all she received was a worried look and an order not to tell her mother.

For two years she did her best to make herself stand out, but nothing happened until she was seventeen, and she met Alan. He made her the most un-Catholic she ever was—she lied to her parents, took her first drink of alcohol, talked about pre-marital sex, and regularly skived off school and church. When he died three months later in a plane crash, Marigold came clean to her parents and finally turned back to her faith.

“Christ will forgive you for your sins,” was all her mother said, her lips drawn tightly into a line, unable to look at her daughter. “He will forgive you this if you accept him into your heart and you will find a good man-- _later_.”

And so she stayed dormant for three years, until she met Reed Evans.

He was neither ugly nor gorgeous, but the glorious, average in-between. He had strong hands and arms and chiseled legs and he could pick up with one arm. She was mad for him; and he for her. Her parents flatly told her no—he was not a man of means, and worse, he was not a devout Catholic—he was not the good man Marigold deserved. Amelia simply said it could be worse, he could be Jewish, and Marigold, who had more than enough Jewish companions, slapped her across the face.

Her mother and her stepfather told her to leave the house or leave Reed. In the greatest act of rebellion she had ever committed, Marigold married him. He agreed to have a Catholic ceremony—if he had not, Marigold was sure her parents would have refused to attend.

In keeping with the botanical theme of their two names, they named their first child Petunia, and the second Lily. Marigold could never pinpoint when things began to go wrong. Reed did not have a university degree and neither did she; at first, their meager income from Reed’s moving company supported them, but caring for two children forced Marigold to find a job. She became a secretary in a real estate office.

Marigold frequently cried during her lunch break and before shewent to bed and while shewas cooking. She could never escape the thought that her parents were right and that the reason for her pain and suffering and lack of wealth lay in her marriage to a non-religious person—an atheist, even. Shehad done her best to raise her two children as Catholics, desperately calling her mother and asking her to visit so she could see that Marigold was doing so well with the children, raising them to be perfect little replicas of the favored daughter, Amelia.

And then Lily turned eleven.

It was a hot, hot day. They were out shopping for a present for Lily, just Lily and Marigold. Lily was gripping Marigold’s hand tightly, skipping along next to her mother and asking for this and that and this and that. Marigold’s heart wrenched every time she had to give her young child a “no” for expensive items. She let go of Lily’s hand for a moment to adjust her purse, and when she reached her hand out to take Lily’s, she found that her daughter had disappeared. 

_“LILY!”_ she shrieked, and she could only think clearly again when she heard Lily’s bright laugh behind her. To Marigold’s surprise, Lily was holding a thick letter.

“Look, Mum! An owl gave it to me!” 

And just like that, their lives changed.

Of course it bothered her, that her daughter was practicing witchcraft. She never gathered the courage to tell her mother, although she told Reed that she did. She smiled when Lily came home with magical items and surprises for them. And marigold saw how Petunia’s face grew sullener and sullener, and how her shoulders drooped every time she heard Lily’s name, and how her eyes flashed with a particular, unidentifiable emotion when she looked at her little sister. 

_How terrible I was to Lily,_ Marigold thinks during Agatha Pierce’s Confirmation. She apologizes to her daughter, who smiles and laughs it off. Marigold does not think her lapse into religious fanaticism is any laughing matter.

_Perhaps if Lily loved me as much as she loves Reed,_ Marigold muses, watching her daughter chat with a friend from elementary school, glowing and radiant in her worn white summer dress. _Perhaps if she did not expect me to berate her for everything…_

Lily is not happy, and Marigold knows this. There is something always off about Lily, something quiet and reserved. Something is fundamentally wrongwith Lily's inability to go after what she wants. 

Marigold's greatest fear is that this is her fault, that her absence has caused this. If only Lily had gone to school closer...

“Maybe if I weren’t scared of her,” Marigold whispers, following her beautiful daughter with her eyes. “For her,” she corrects herself. So many boys would want her, and Marigold has no idea whether Lily dates at school. She doesn’t really know. She finds herself hardly caring sometimes, not when sheis tired and her husband is getting on her nerves. These times, she can't care less what Lily does.

She hates herself for this. Marigold is horrified when she cannot muster concern for Lily, who is so far away and far from her parents' advice and love. 

When Marigold has her accident and she is lying at the bottom of the cellar steps with her ankle twisted and her consciousness ebbing, she can hear her mother’s voice drifting up from abyss of darkness… _Christ will forgive you for your sins_ …and when she sees that angel appear and tell her that life will be better, only if she rids her life of sin, Marigold closes her eyes and smiled. 

_Christ will forgive you for her sins…_

**_……_ **

****

**Next in _Frustration:_ Becky Denby**

**Please remember to review. Also, I’ve posted a new chapter of Silences Between Leaves, but I fixed the split between the two halves of Chapter Two and had to replace to post Chapter Three, so the story didn’t jump to the top of the updated list.**

**Look for an update to this in a two or three days.**


	2. Rebecca Denby: February 19, 1958 to August 12, 1977

**Interlude One: Frustration**

**_……_ **

****

**Rebecca Denby**  
{ _Caring is Creepy,_ by The Shins}  
February 19, 1958 to August 12, 1977 

Rebecca Denby first kissed a boy at the age of seven, during recess, by the swing set on the school playground. His name was Derrick, and he had a surname, but Becky never knew it nor cared to learn what it was. She was the first girl in her class to kiss a boy, let alone one as popular as Derrick, and as soon as she sat down at her desk for arithmetic her best friend leaned over to ask, excitedly, how the kiss had been.

“Nothing special.” Becky tossed her hair over her shoulder and began to add and subtract her columns of numbers.

Becky was popular and she remained so at Hogwarts. She had the average number of boyfriends and average grades and an average amount of friends, but there was always something…not right. She never felt as though she had found a place in the world just for her. She tried her best with her first serious boyfriend, but after six months, three months of which they had been shagging, he left school and took a part of her heart with him. 

She enjoyed drawing and design, but what really interested her was the engineering that when into creating a building—the math involved and the calculations and a good deal of concepts she never learned at Hogwarts. She had to read books upon books upon books before she submitted her application to Potter Enterprises, and even when she was called in for an interview…she still knew something had taken hold of her and she was never going to get over it if she didn’t get this job.

She’s kind of screwed up, really. She’s kind of attached, really.

She got the job—then what? She spent her days working, doing as she was told, flirting with James Potter when he worked over the summer. She knew he had been a part of her acceptance at his father’s company. She didn’t know how to thank him. 

When she’s sucking him off as he lies on her bed, she idly thinks that perhaps this is how to do it.

Becky knew this was going to happen; she wanted to stay for dinner just to prevent it. She’d been utterly insulted when he showed up at her flat the day before his parents’ party and asked her to accompany him. She accepted anyway, and the next day he was just on time picking her up, and when she Apparated right outside his lovely house she had to catch her breath.

“Ready?” he asked her.

“Yes. Anything I should know before we go in? Some tips? Advice?”

James grinned. “Of course. I’m glad you asked.”

Becky raised her eyebrows and waited.

“First of all, be nice to my mother, and be honest, and be yourself. She can spot a lie from about five million miles away.”

Becky nodded.

“Second, when you see my father, be calm, and keep your back straight, and be very— _very_ —polite.”

She laughed. “Oh, I’ll try.”

“Third—Sirius is still inside, I think, so please don’t sleep with him. He’ll probably make a half-hearted attempt, since he hasn’t gotten any in ages. I probably shouldn’t have told you that. Oh well.”

Becky did not laugh and she knew James was surprised, for he had expected her to do so. “I promise not to shag him,” she said seriously. James looked at her quizzically, perhaps not prepared for her to be so grave. She stepped forward and placed her hand on his chest, smiling up at him. “Really, James. That would be daft of me, yeah?”

“Er…yeah. Let’s go on in, shall we?” 

She spent the better part of the evening with James, but part of it with Sirius. She could see, then, why James didn’t want her to shag him—he was just the type of reckless friend who took everything and never wanted his friends to have what he did. He would be the quintessential jealous male friend if any of his companions ever began dating. Sirius was a magnet for his entire free life. Becky stayed away from him.

She kisses James the moment they get to her flat, after Sirius has left the Potters’ and the company investors are sitting down to dinner on gold-rimmed plates. She doesn’t do so because she can’t resist, because she could, and quite easily, if she really wanted. She does it because she’s bored and she thinks James is, too—bored with Sirius, bored with school, bored with being stuck in the same predestined life he has always had. Yesterday, Becky shagged Daniel Carrow. She decides as she’s kissing James that she won’t sleep with him, because that’s tipping the balance in favor of complete slag.

James isn’t resisting in the least, not like Becky thought he would. He’s got his hands in her hair and his fingers are sliding over her back. The room is dark with anticipation and want and Becky wastes no time unclasping his robes and unbuttoning his shirt. He’s got his pants off in a moment and she undoes the front of his boxers and pushes the fabric aside.

He swears, and she finds she expected it. He’s turning her on, even though she didn’t think he would. She shoves him over to the bed and she’s sure he’s loving this, almost coming, almost dying when she takes off her proper clothing and remains before him in her bra and knickers. She kneels on the floor—his legs are dangling off the end of the bed and he’s got his eyes squeezed shut.

Becky does what she does best, what she hates, what she knows he loves. She’s not sure how far he’s gotten or whether he’s ever had anyone do this before, but somehow she thinks not. His hips are thrusting against her mouth and it’s disgusting and uncomfortable, but she can tells he’s holding back to avoid breaking her nose. She’s grateful, for she’d hate to suck up her own blood.

She swallows when he comes after about two minutes ( _poor James, poor James, poor James, fast and inexperienced and missing out on the delicious heat of a female mouth for all these years_ ). “I hate doing that,” she says quietly, and he doesn’t hear her. She feels cruel, disillusioning him like this, but she can’t help it, because a sick part of her wants to make him suffer—he did, after all, just come in her mouth. He owes her.

“I hate doing that,” she says louder, shaking away his hands as he seeks to assure himself he’s not like every other bloke, a user and a prick. Becky yanks her hair back from her face—at least there’s no come in it—and ties it up. “Do you need anything?” she asks. “No? Still coming? Okay. Good to know.”

She smiles as she shakes her head, but she’s far from truly amused.

“You hate it?” James asked faintly. Becky throws a blanket at him. He looks ridiculous—flaccid, his legs splayed, his hair messy, his lips still parted in rapture.

“It’s disgusting, James. Most girls hate giving head, you know. We just do because it’s easier to deal with after than sex. Sorry to disappoint.”

He looks dismayed. Becky is secretly glad and consciously angry. _Every bloke_ is like this. They’re all sad that girls don’t want to get them off with their mouths. It drives her absolutely mad—she wants to kick him or bite him or tie him up and leave him to rot. He mumbles something about not being disappointed, but she knows then and there—and she fully acknowledges the next day—that he’s lying. He doesn’t speak to her—he can barely look at her. Becky’s glad she has Daniel Carrow to relieve some of her madness. 

She idly wonders whether she’s _ruined_ James in some way, whether she’s awoken his true sexual appetite now that he knows how good someone else’s help can be when getting off. She’s not sure. Mostly, she doesn’t care.

It’s not that she’s mean or cruel or hateful, but instead that she can’t bring herself to look at James without remembering his stupid idealistic views. _This_ boy will run this company in the coming years. This boy is her future. He’s only a _child._

She decides to never tell anyone that James wasn’t calling her name when he came—he wasn’t calling anyone’s name, really, but the impression of…someone else was there. She was quite certain that when she looked up, the poor boy was seeing red, until he opened them and saw Becky’s dark hair between his legs. She almost wishes she could be Lily Evans for him—she knows he feels wrong about letting Becky do this to him now that she told him she doesn’t like it. She wonders whether he’ll ever have a girl give him head again unless he’s sure she wants to.

They don’t speak for the remainder of his short life. Becky dies years and years after the Second War ends (she never does find what she’s looking for out of life, but God knows she tries so hard— _so hard!_ ), the only person to ever know what he tastes like when he feels guilty—for he, surprisingly enough, is _semper_ _fidelis._

**……**

**Stay tuned for Peter’s part, coming soon.**


	3. Peter Pettigrew: August 11, 1960 to August 11, 1977

**Interlude One: Frustration**

**……**

**Peter Pettigrew  
{** **Outcast, by Insidious Frustration}**  
August 11, 1960 to August 11, 1977

Peter Pettigrew was almost born on the eleventh day of August in 1960. At the first contraction, Dorothea Pettigrew put her hand to her stomach and said “Oh my! A brave little Leo!”

Incidentally, he was really born on August thirty-first. 

His mother, however, told him he was born on August eleventh. He never did find out his birthday was the thirty-first. His mother just loved the idea of her son as a little lion so much that she almost believed herself that his birthday was at the beginning of the month. Peter’s father could say nothing about the matter, for he died shortly before Peter’s birth—sudden illness, nothing sinister. Peter, however, spent a majority of his rather lonely childhood making up stories about heroic ways for his father to have died, taking down bad blokes and saving the world, all in one.

Sometime around the time he was seven, he began to hate his mother.

It wasn’t his fault. She was simply overbearing and strict and completely invested in Peter’s life. She meddled and poked and prodded. She never saw that her son wanted nothing better than to get out. She cried when he got his Hogwarts letter and went off to school—but Peter grinned away his summer and the early hours of September first.

That is, until he got on the train.

Peter was unprepared to make friends amongst several hundred other students. He found an empty compartment and settled himself in—he stayed there for the entire train ride as people laughed and shrieked in the corridor. He changed into his school robes at one point, and he was shaking when he got off the train and followed a huge man down to the shore of a lake, where a group of rickety boats awaited the first years.

Someone jostled Peter. “Sorry,” said a boy with glasses and hazel eyes that peered at Peter. “James Potter. You?”

“Peter Pettigrew,” Peter said, keeping his stutter in check, for once.

“C’mon,” James said, jerking his thumb toward an empty boat. Peter scrambled on after his new friend and nearly tipped the boat over. James laughed—not meanly, but as if inviting Peter to laugh along with him. Peter did.

“Oi! You two—save those two seats!”

James Potter frowned. “That’s Sirius Black,” he said, sniffing disdainfully. “Quick—say you’re saving those seats!”

Sirius Black was just the kind of boy Peter was always furious with for being blessed with charm and good looks. Beside him stood a pale boy with shaggy brown hair and a timid, blindingly white smile. 

“Th-these seats are being saved,” Peter said immediately.

“Well that’s too bad, because we’re going to take them,” Sirius Black said righteously. He almost shoved Peter out of the boat as he and his companion got in.

“Potter, yeah?” Black said, glancing at James.

“No need to ask who you are,” James replied, and he turned without another word to face Peter. Peter was elated—finally! Someone chose him over the charming boy!

Sirius Black looked rather troubled. “This is—” he began, pointing to his friend.

“Look!” James Potter said, pointing upward. They all lifted their faces and were dwarfed by the view of Hogwarts. The castle loomed over them, throwing all the boats into shadow. Peter was awed. Peter was overcome. Peter was silent until his sorting.

Oh, my, the hat said slyly. Oh, yes indeed. This is a challenge. Not…no, that won’t work. Perhaps—no, that’d make a mess. There’s only one thing for it—

Gryffindor, Peter thought desperately. Gryffindor. I’m a Leo. I’m meant for Gryffindor.

The hat was silent. If it must be, Peter finally heard, the strange voice hesitant and, if it were possible, scared. 

“GRYFFINDOR!”

Gryffindor did Peter no good. His three dorm mates were his three companions in his boat (he always did wonder whether that was fate—he never knew). Peter expected to be friends of the best sort with James, but he suddenly found himself cast aside for Sirius Black.

Of course Black got what Peter wanted. It was only the way the world worked. Peter did, however, become a part of that friendship, along with Remus Lupin. Peter was there when they found out about Remus, and when they did their best to help him. Peter clearly remembers the way it felt the first time he transformed, the first time he saw his friends look at him with real respect. Peter had transformed first out of the three of them.

He thought during his sixth year that he would finally replace Sirius in James’s life. Remus forgave Sirius instantly for his rash mistake with Snape and the Whomping Willow—James, however, did his best to punish Sirius by freezing him out. Peter was left disappointed by James’s gradual readmission of Sirius into his life after that incident. Peter never made it as far as Sirius did, not where James was concerned.

He thinks about it bitterly as he sits with his friends in Diagon Alley, watching James play it cool while talking to Lily. She would never look at Peter the way she’s looking at James. Peter glances at Evan Rosier, whose narrowed eyes are trained on Peter. 

Peter frowns. Why would Evan Rosier look at Peter—for any reason? Peter tears his eyes away and watches James bid Lily goodbye. Sirius immediately begins talking about sex and Peter sighs into his ice cream. Peter rarely joins in when his friends start talking about girls and snogging and sex.

He would only embarrass himself.

He hardly knows how to deal with James’s birthday party, when so many girls are half-naked and running around, bouncing and jiggling and holy shit, popping right out of their bikini tops and rubbing against each other and giggling. They’ve got to be putting on a show because girls can’t really act like that—Peter would die. He watches in disbelief as James and Lily walk inside and Sirius makes his drunken way through the crowd.

He rolls his eyes when Sirius hits on his old girlfriend, Miriam Holt, and invites her to come along for Remus’s birthday. Peter knows that if he ever invited someone, Sirius would shoot him down in a second and force him to retract his invitation—that is, if James didn’t stop him from treating Peter like shit.

Peter relies on James. He hates it when James goes off with Lily—it leaves Peter vulnerable to attack by Sirius.

It’s why he gets drunk on Remus’s birthday (they never celebrate Peter’s, he thinks, but he’s fine with it because that’s the way the world is). Lily shows up, and Peter immediately does his best to get plastered so he doesn’t have to deal with Sirius’s issues and James’s absence. He knows Remus will take care of him, because that’s what Remus does.

Sirius attacks. Peter cowers. James mediates. Remus nurses.

It’s a horrendous dance and Peter can’t wait to break formation and screw up the steps. He wants to see what people will say when pathetic Peter Pettigrew becomes a household name, becomes known for breaking the mold and doing things no other person had the power to do.

He must do so. He has to find something he is best at so he can have an aspect of his life to be proud of. Peter has to find a way to break the mold.

He can’t think of any way to one-up his friends. He can’t think of any way until Evan Rosier sends him a letter by dark owl on his birthday, when he’s sitting at home with crappy gifts and wishes from his three friends. Perhaps this letter from one Evan Rosier is the way to make Peter known and famous and revered.

Perhaps Rosier will help Peter edge ahead of Sirius in this race called life.

...... 


End file.
